the Rustlers Of West Fork (1951) (21 page)

"Howdy, boys! I'm Hopalong Cassidy!"

As if at a signal, all three grabbed for their guns, a bearlike man with a bald head in his sock feet, an unshaven man in rough miner's boots, soiled shirt, and suspenders, and a younger one with a fancy neckerchief. All three grabbed iron, and Hopalong sprang left, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, his first shot exploding even as his feet touched the floor, directed at the first man to move. His second shot caught the bald one in the throat and he turned around and fell back over his chair to the floor.

The miner sat dead still, his hands lifted. "Don't shoot!" he yelled. "I'm out of it!"

"See you stay that way." Hopalong stepped around the table to look at the big man who lay unmoving amid the chair's wreckage. "Who sent you up here? Sparr?"

"Nobody sent me! This here's my cabin.

Sparr sent them hombres up here to lay for you, an'

I hadn't no choice. I ain't no gunslinger, Cassidy! What could I do?"

"How many horses have you got here?" Hopalong demanded. "Three horses an" my pack mule.

You ain't goin' to leave me stranded, are you?"

"You can ride the mule. I'm leaving three o' my horses here, but I want "em here when I send for 'em. Now you drag those hombres into your lean-to an" fix some fresh coffee an' grub. You can figger you are mighty lucky you ain't layin' with those fellers on the floor. Get movin'!" The miner hastily went around the table and stared down at the bodies. He seemed appalled by the suddenness with which it all had happened, and Hopalong could see at a glance there was no fight in the man. No doubt there were many such who worked along with Avery Sparr simply from fear or from lack of the will to resist, or perhaps for the few extra dollars it made them.

The man touched his lips with his tongue. "You drilled the two of "em plumb center!"

"Then let's not make it three," Hopalong said quietly. "Make the coffee."

Chapter
12

F
OUR WHO TRIED

Alma lay quiet under the unblemished purity of new-fallen snow. The Eagle Saloon, as is the way of such places, was brightly lighted and blaring with what they undoubtedly assumed to be music. A half-dozen tough-looking hands, whose last day's work was several years behind them, loitered along the bar, lying to each other about women they had known and money they had spent. At a card table several others loafed, waiting for word that Hopalong had been sighted. None of them expected the word to come. Behind the bar Chet Bales, no longer riding since he had caught a bullet in his knee that left him with a permanently stiff leg, was serving rotgut liquor to his uncritical customers. Most of these men had done minor chores for Sparr; all of them hoped to do bigger chores for him. Since his arrival the Eagle had been considerably more prosperous than in the past few years. Frowned on by less popular and more cleanly establishments, the Eagle bloomed and grew like some noisome flower in an otherwise pleasant garden. Dawn was not far away, but none of these men were thinking of turning in, for they had their orders, which were to kill Cassidy whenever and wherever he could be found, and to many of them the five hundred dollars was a sum for which they would gladly have murdered a half-dozen men. Watchers had been posted on every trail leading out of the mountains, and these were relieved at intervals. Yet as the hours drew by and nothing happened, they became more and more convinced that Hopalong Cassidy was either snowed in high in the mountains or dead on the trail. Yet they had their orders, and so they stayed.

As for Hopalong, he led his little cavalcade into town by a back street about an hour before daylight and went directly to the home of Doc Benton, a lifelong friend of Jordan's who had lately come to town. Leaving Dick, now on the verge of collapse, Hopalong turned to the door.

Pamela ran to him and caught his arm.

"floppy!" she pleaded. "Don't go!"

His face was bleak in the graying light of the coming day and his blue eyes were frosty with some strange light she had never seen in them before. "I'm goin"," he told her flatly and evenly. "You stay here, Pam, an' help look after yore dad. I'm goin' down to meet those fellers at the Eagle that have been huntin' me. I don't aim to disappoint them any."

"Be careful, Hoppy. Please!"

He grinned then. "Why, Pam, you don't need to tell me to be careful! I'm always a right careful sort of gent. Only there's some folks down there that need to be showed the error of their ways. I reckon I need to lead a few of them from the paths of temptation."

The stubble of beard on his cheeks had grown. He felt tough and mean. The miserable ride through the snow, the bitterness of running when he wanted to fight, the feeling that had been building in him against Avery Sparr, who would try to steal from a crippled man and a girl, all had been mounting in him until he knew that sleep or even rest would be impossible until he had faced these men. He knew what he had to do, and he was in the right frame of mind to do it.

At the moment he hoped they would start something, any one or all of them. He felt blazing mad clean through, and the bitterness in him was like gall in his mouth.

He did not waste time looking through the saloon windows. He went up the steps then through the door and its slam behind him was like the crash of a double-barreled shotgun. They whirled and stared, all sleep gone in an instant.

Feet apart, he stood inside the door. His eyes were utterly cold, but within him there was a leaping devil. "I'm Hopalong Cassidy." For the second time in a few hours he threw into their teeth the name that was a challenge. "Somebody here want me?"

Riveted to the floor, they stared at him. "Come on!" His voice was cold and deadly, laden with menace. "I heard some o' you coyotes were huntin' me! I heard there was money on my head!

Let somebody try to collect!" Nobody moved.

They were caught flat-footed, and the fierceness of his challenge, the daring of him, the sudden appearance when they believed him dead, all served to take their breath away. Nobody moved He was beside himself with fury.

With a quick stride, he stepped to the bar and grabbed a glass from a man and hurled the liquor into the eyes of a half-dozen of them. Then, spinning on his heel, he grabbed a card table and dumped it over on the floor. "Come on!" he begged. "One of you! A dozen of you! Grab iron an' let's see what you do when you hunt men for money!" Still nobody moved.

Men pawed the stinging liquor from their eyes, but of those around the card table nobody even so much as looked at the scattered money or cards. The room was still, the fire roared in the stove, but nobody spoke.

"All right!" Hopalong's voice was utterly cold. "On your feet! You first!" He indicated a man who sat where the table had been upset. "Shuck your guns. Then grab your horse an' get out of town!"

"Huh? In this weather?" The man stared and was about to venture further protest when Hopalong took a step toward him, his elbows crooked for a draw.

"Yeah! In this weather! I crossed the mountains in it-let's see how you hombres like it!

That goes"-his eyes swept their faces-"for every man jack of you! Get your horses an' get goin', but shuck your guns right here!" Cassidy's eyes fastened on the bartender. "Bales," he said.

"I remember you. An' you know me. Close this place now, and don't stop this side of Holbrook, get me?"

"Look, Hoppy!" Bales pleaded. "I got a game leg! I got money in this place!"

"That's tough. Nobody has a right to run a business where a lot of murderin', back-shootin' coyotes like this hang out. You know me, Bales!

Start shooting or close up!"

Bales gulped and slowly heaved a deep sigh.

"Well, it looks like a mighty cold winter here, anyway." He looked slowly around the room. "As of now"-Bales sighed again-"consider the Eagle Saloon closed."

Carefully the men got to their feet and started for the door, and one by one they shucked their guns. One man hesitated, and looked longingly after his pistol.

"Cost me a tough month's wages," he said. "Will I get it back?" "No." Hopalong was relentless. "Next time you earn a gun you may learn to pack it in better company an' for a better cause. Keep movin'!" Within ten minutes the saloon was dark and still. Running a piece of rope picked up from behind the bar through the trigger guards of the guns, Hopalong slung them over his shoulder.

Coolly he walked down to the sheriff's office and banged on the door. A sleepy-looking, unshaven officer in a red flannel undershirt and sock feet came to the door. "What's the fuss, mister? Go sleep it off before I throw you in the clink!"

Without more than a glance Hopalong dumped the guns on the floor. The sheriff stared, blinking his eyes at them. "What Hopalong looked up at him, and his frosty eyes made the sheriff back up. "I've just dosed the Eagle," Cassidy said calmly. "These guns belong to the hombres I run out of there. Do what you've a mind to with "em, but don't give 'em back to that outfit or I'll come over here an" pull every hair out of your mustache one by one!"

"You what?" The sheriff's face swelled with fury. "Now, see here, young fel-to "

He stopped, seeming to get the gist of Cassidy's remarks for the first time. He swallowed and stared.

"You closed the Eagle?" he exclaimed in amazement. "You took those hombres' hardware off "em?"

Cassidy was already walking away down the street.

An early riser stopped in front of the sheriff and stared at the guns, then at Hopalong's retreating back. "Hey, who was that?" he asked.

Dazed, the sheriff turned to look at him.

"Mister," he said reverently, "I got no idea who he is, but b'lieve me he's the toughest hombre that ever come west o" the Pecos!"

When Arnold Soper left the Circle J, he rode due north by the Indian Creek trail toward Turkey Springs Canyon. If ever he was going to act, the time was now. There was nothing more he could do on the J, and in fact his presence there might become infinitely dangerous if any of the men at the ranch or those who were to come would talk to Mesquite and Johnny.

He doubted whether they would get anything out of Cuyas or Hank Lydon, but it was possible.

However, in any event the safest place for him was out of the picture completely. His mission to Turkey Springs was simplicity itself. He had four tough men there, and they had already been well instructed in their jobs. They knew where payment was to come from, and all that would remain would be the sweeping up, with guns, of a few odds and ends. They might have to kill Sparr, but that, too, might be taken care offor them.

Avery Sparr was not yet back at the ranch and he might catch Cassidy and in the shoot-out somebody was sure to be killed. Such men do not often miss. In any event, one of his enemies was almost certain to be eliminated. When the returning rustlers showed up at the ranch, Soper started them off at once, for it was to his interests that the Jordans and Cassidy be eliminated.

So, as he started north, the situation looked very good. He could almost surely write off the Jordans and Cassidy. If they escaped Sparr, there were the mountains, and if they got through the snow and over the heights, there were the Sparr men awaiting them on the other end. Bizco was dead, Barker was dead, and both of them were men to be taken account of. That left, aside from Sparr himself, if he survived, Johnny Rebb-a very uncertain quantity-and Anse Mowry. Both men were dangerous, although he knew most about Mowry. With the others he anticipated little trouble. But it was these three, and after them Proctor, Framson, and Mark Connor, whom he wanted wiped out. And then he would be in the saddle and would have everything his own way.

Unknown to him, several things had happened at the Circle J. Mesquite and Johnny had some information from the two wounded men, and Hank Lydon had started for Horse Springs with the warning from Mesquite. Mesquite himself, with Johnny Nelson, had followed the tracks of the racing horsemen a way, and then had seen Soper's tracks turn off. Soper had dismounted right off the trail to tighten his cinch, and from the tracks of the new boots they had surmised who it was.

They wanted nothing better than this. Mesquite, a tracker almost as good as any Indian, led the way down his trail. Wherever Soper was going they intended to go too. Snow was falling steadily, and the trail was easy to follow if they did not fall too far behind, but they could afford to ride fairly close, for the snow drew a curtain between them. Yet it was because of the snow that they lost him. The tracks petered out in an open place where the snow was swept clean by the wind, and it was almost an hour before they found them again. Consequently they were well behind, and now the trail was being covered very rapidly by the sifting snow.

At Turkey Springs the four men were waiting restlessly for orders, and when Soper arrived, he paid each man a hundred dollars on account and told them how the other nine hundred promised them could be made. The Hardy boys, Jim and Dave, came from Mississippi by way of Texas, while the Coyote Kid was a half-breed Kiowa who had teamed up with Oklahoma Tom at Mobeetie.

The four had one distinction aside from downright gun skillthey were not squeamish. They would kill at any time or any place if the price was right. Yet not one of them would hesitate to face any man in a gun battle, and Soper had chosen well, as he knew. In a brief talk he told them that now was the time to get started, then rode on, planning a quick trip to Horse Springs to let matters get settled around the Circle J.